WORLD NEWS BRIEFS

WORLD NEWS BRIEFS;56,000 Reported Driven From Homes in Burundi

Reuters

Published: April 5, 1996

BUJUMBURA, Burundi, April 4—
Fierce ethnic fighting across Burundi has forced some 56,000 people to flee their homes since the beginning of March, the International Committee of the Red Cross said today.

The chief Red Cross delegate here, Patrick Berner, said the refugees had been scattered in towns across the country since Hutu rebels opened an offensive in the southwest against the Tutsi-dominated Government.

Before March there were about 300,000 refugees in Burundi, which has been riven by ethnic massacres and civil war since the assassination of its first elected President, Melchior Ndadaye, in 1995.

"The fighting is causing enormous movement of people, and we're getting demands for food and assistance every day," said the director of the World Food Program in Burundi, Jean-Luc Siblot.

More than 100,000 people have been killed in conflict between minority Tutsi and majority Hutu in Burundi. The same racial division in neighboring Rwanda resulted in more than half a million deaths two years ago.